Ballard's Tour de France: June 3, 2014: Canoeing the Dordogne River

This morning Jerry and Rich took the car into a Renault dealer in Sarlat to have them check out the warning light. Jerry had heard back from the leasing agent and also contacted the roadside assistance people here in France and the consensus was to have a Renault mechanic look at it. While they were gone, Becky and I decided to check out where to rent canoes for floating the river. There's rain in the forecast for tomorrow, so today seemed to be the better day for spending time on the river. So far, we've been extremely lucky with the weather. The temperatures have typically been somewhere in the low to high sixties, sometimes with cloudy skies, but no real rain to speak of.

Timing worked out great and the guys met us down at the river where we were shuttled to Vitrac, the start of our canoe trip. Vitrac to Beynac is 9 miles with a number of sights along the way. We passed the fortified hill town of Domme and stopped for lunch at the medieval town of La Roque-Gageac. We also saw a number of chateaux as we slowly paddled by: the Chateau de Fayrac, the Chateau de Castelnaud (occupied by the British during the Hundred Years' War) and, of course, the Chateau de Beynac.

After docking the boat at Beynac, we hiked up to Beynac's landmark, the medieval chateau on the hill, and wandered through the amazingly well-preserved 12th century structure. One could easily imagine horses in the stable area, armored knights in the great hall, tapestries on the walls, roaring fires in the huge fireplaces, and lords and ladies eating in the dining hall. We have nothing in the history department when compared to France and other European countries. Tomorrow, we're going even further back in time as we visit some of the prehistoric caves in the area.